The paper “An assessment of adaptation measures to enhance wheat productivity under climate change during early, mid and end of 21st century in Indian Punjab“, published in The Journal of Agricultural Science, has been chosen as the latest Editorial Highlight and is freely available to download for one month. 

Wheat, the worldwide staple food crop is highly vulnerable to climate change. Since, it is a cool season crop, so it gets affected by rise in temperature. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected an increase in the temperatures along with a changing pattern of rainfall in most parts of the world.  The United Nations data indicates that India’s population has more than doubled since 1950 and is likely to surpass 1.5 billion by 2030. Punjab is popularly known as “Bread basket” of India due to it’s ~45%  contribution to the central food grain pool. The state is witnessing the signs of increasing temperatures, rainfall variability, etc. Studies on climate change reveal further rise in temperature and this will hamper wheat productivity during the 21^st century in the state. So climate change is leading to a critical situation where feeding the growing billions will be a challenge.

As a way forward, a simulation study using the CERES-Wheat model was conducted to predict wheat yield and adaptive strategies during the three time slices (2030-2050, 2050-2070 and 2070-2090) under four representative concentration pathways (RCPs 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5) for four agroclimatic zones (ACZs) of Punjab. The input temperature and rainfall data was downscaled from the Ensemble model available at http://gismap.ciat.cgiar.org/MarkSimGCM/. The study was conducted for two commonly sown cultivars (HD2967 and PBW725) with two adaptation measures, i.e. shift in sowing dates and shift in sowing date supplemented with higher nitrogen doses.

Under predicted climate scenarios, amongst the sowing dates, 24^thNovember sown wheat gave the highest yield. The yields were further improved when the crop was supplemented with higher N doses (190 and 230 kg ha^-1). However, the spatio-temporal variability in the projected temperature and rainfall within the state itself affected the overall wheat performance under the optimized adaptation measures. The increase in yield under the four emission scenarios and across the three time slices for a particular cultivar with the adaptation measures was more or less similar for a given location in the particular agroclimatic zone, except for ACZIV (Bathinda). The improvement in wheat yields was much lesser under RCP8.5 scenario even with combined adaptation measures during the end of 21^st century.

Climate smart agriculture can help alleviate the negative impacts posed by changing climate systems on wheat crop. The study highlights that if simple adaptive strategies like shift in sowing dates, change in nitrogen doses and selection of resilient cultivars are aptly done for an agrarian state like Punjab then it could help alleviate hunger, malnutrition and poverty amongst the masses in the country. The study can be used to identify the suitable adaptation measures for sustainable wheat production in the state.

The Journal of Agricultural Science Editorial Highlights are selected by the Editor-in-Chief and are freely available for one month. View the recent selections here.